Commentaries

Poetry of Baja California in 'Jacket' 21

In his introduction to this Jacket feature, Mark Weiss delves into the literary history of Baja Californian poetry. It is impossible to separate art from history; the growth of a region corresponds to the flourishing of expression, and political occurrences like the increased scrutiny of the borders post-9/11 or Mexico’s Woodstock in ’71 leave a visible trace.

In his introduction to this Jacket feature, Mark Weiss delves into the literary history of Baja Californian poetry. It is impossible to separate art from history; the growth of a region corresponds to the flourishing of expression, and political occurrences like the increased scrutiny of the borders post-9/11 or Mexico’s Woodstock in ’71 leave a visible trace. At the same time, Baja California is a liminal space. It is ever-changing and constantly passed through.

Coinciding with the publication of an expanded 50th anniversary edition of his anthology Technicians of the Sacred, poet, translator and anthologist Jerome Rothenberg will explore the early history of ethnopoetics.

Ethos Books and poetry publishing in Singapore

During my years in Singapore, I found myself in cafes and libraries reading anthologies and monographs marked with a stark, elegant icon. A swatch of black fabric fanned open? A pie with a dark slice carved out? A stylized ginko leaf floating in white space? A clock paused at five to eight? The books that I kept encountering at poetry readings, in my students’ hands, and on my friends’ coffee tables had this emblem as well. It was the icon of Ethos Books. As I leave the island-nation for Michigan, I wrap Discourses onLocality with this closing interview with Ethos Books, a singular publisher of Poetry in Singapore.

During my years in Singapore, I found myself in cafés and libraries reading anthologies and monographs marked with a stark, elegant icon. A swatch of black fabric fanned open? A pie with a dark slice carved out? A stylized ginko leaf floating in white space? A clock paused at five to eight? The books that I kept encountering at poetry readings, in my students’ hands, and on my friends’ coffee tables had this emblem as well. It was the icon of Ethos Books.

Nursing the machine that killed us

It is difficult to sum up a book like Allison Cobb’s After We All Died. It is “about” the era of Geocapitalism (the so-called Anthropocene), but nowhere mentions it directly. It is not focused on climate change (which it also doesn’t really mention), animals (though there are a lot of ants), habitat, or any other number of artifacts and attributes that we might associate with the ecologically bereft present. What the book does is accept the premise that the threshold has been crossed, and for all intents and purposes, the human project is done. Now the postmortem can begin.

“We are the killers. We stink of death. We carry it with us. It sticks to us like frost. We cannot tear it away” — John Alec Baker, The Peregrine

What is a “Linopentametron”? Is it truly possible to scientifically render a poem “impervious to attack by even the most powerful critical tools”? What, exactly, happened between Sappho of Lesbos and Tod?

What is a “Linopentametron”? Is it truly possible to scientifically render a poem “impervious to attack by even the most powerful critical tools”? What, exactly, happened between Sappho of Lesbos and Tod? Founding editor John Tranter is likely the mind responsible for the comedic snapshots of literary “history” in several of Jacket’s earlier issues.

Previous commentaries

Brianne Alphonso

J2 summer intern Brianne Alphonso reviews three titles dealing in the inevitable march of time: Kholin 66: Diaries and Poems by Igor Kholin, trans. Ainsely Morse and Bela Shayevich; How to Bake a Planet by Pete Mullineaux; and Tumbling Toward theEndby David Budbill.

Brianne Alphonso returns with three capsule reviews on the inevitable onset of years.

Sometimes writing poems is too much for me. I’ll be in no mood for words or for thinking with any depth on a matter. I cut and glue pictures and patterns instead. Collage is how I shift gears. There is something peaceful about cutting along the edge of an image. I have books on magic and mysteries of the world and Jane Fonda’s workout routine and children’s illustrated history books and books about space and land and science. I have folders where images and landscapes wait for me to find a use for them. I can follow my amateur (nonexistent) visual sensibilities as I piece together the cut-out phrases and headless bodies and mollusk shells, and it brings me simple pleasure. There are no painstaking decisions to make or moments where I completely shut down and question every decision I ever made leading up to this point.

Sometimes writing poems is too much for me. I’ll be in no mood for words or for thinking with any depth on a matter. I cut and glue pictures and patterns instead. Collage is how I shift gears. There is something peaceful about cutting along the edge of an image. I have books on magic and mysteries of the world and Jane Fonda’s workout routine and children’s illustrated history books and books about space and land and science. I have folders where images and landscapes wait for me to find a use for them.

Brianne Alphonso

Jacket2’s summer intern, Brianne Alphonso, reviews three poetry titles that deal in cityscapes: On a Clear Day by Jasmine Dreame Wagner, Manhattan an Archaeology by Eileen R. Tabios, and Blue by Wesley St. Jo and Remé Grefalda. Of On a Clear Day, she notes in part: “Wagner’s book — a medley of prose, poems, and essays — tells a story of urban noise in an age where ‘visibility, consistency, solvency, become moral imperatives.’ From the tapping of fingers on iPhone screens to the radio waves buzzing in our ears, the very air we breathe is loud.”

Jacket2’s summer intern, Brianne Alphonso, reviews three poetry titles that deal in cityscapes: On a Clear Day by Jasmine Dreame Wagner, Manhattan an Archaeology by Eileen R. Tabios, and Blue by Wesley St. Jo and Remé Grefalda.

A look back at 'Jacket' in 1999

1999 was a great year for Jacket poets, even if it was a bit of a wild year outside. Some sectors speculated that the Y2K bug would spell the end of the Internet — and the end of Jacket by default — but more than that, the last year of the millennium was a time for reflection. It evoked a sense of nostalgia and a near-obligatory need to look back at the figurative footsteps in the sand. Jacket published issues 6–9 that year (January, April, July, and October), so why not take a moment to look back at the poets who were likewise looking back?

1999 was a great year for Jacket poets, even if it was a bit of a wild year outside. Some sectors speculated that the Y2K bug would spell the end of the Internet — and the end of Jacket by default — but more than that, the last year of the millennium was a time for reflection. It evoked a sense of nostalgia and a near-obligatory need to look back at the figurative footsteps in the sand.

Layli Long Soldier’s WHEREAS

I began this series of commentaries with David Herd’s attempt to find a path through the largely legalistic language of the modern border. Layli Long Soldier covers similar conceptual territory in her brilliant new book Whereas (Graywolf, 2017), but she comes at the border, as it were, from the inside out. Writing from the position of an indigenous (she is Oglala Sioux) addressee of the Congressional Resolution of Apology to Native Americans, Long Soldier considers the affective impact of this empty statement as it participates in a long history of linguistic obfuscations and justifications of theft and genocide.

I began this series of commentaries with David Herd’s attempt to find a path through the largely legalistic language of the modern border. Layli Long Soldier covers similar conceptual territory in her brilliant new book Whereas (Graywolf, 2017), but she comes at the border, as it were, from the inside out.